Planning & Funding Energy Efficient Commercial Buildings

 

The City of La Crosse and the Sustainability Institute are offering a free workshop to help commercial building owners in La Crosse learn how they can adopt technologies that are available now, will make their buildings more energy efficient, and reduce their energy bills. The workshop takes place on Thursday, May 9, 2024, from 10:00 am to Noon and will be held at the Coleman Center, Room 133, on the Western Technical College campus. This is the second in a series of workshops the City is sponsoring to help businesses learn how they can incorporate sustainable practices that also make sense from a business perspective.

Local experts from Xcel, Trane, Solar Connections, and Focus on Energy will cover information ranging from simple actions to heating and cooling options. In addition, throughout the workshop information about associated incentives and rebates will be provided to help companies attending learn how to reduce the cost of investing in the new technologies.

People can register using the “Reserve your Spot” link on the La Crosse Climate Action Plan website or register on Eventbrite. Registration is limited to 25 participants.

Speakers and topics incude:

Tax Incentives & Rebates with Will Hutchens/Xcel Mid-Market Representative  and Christine Hau/Focus on Energy Energy Advisor. Will and Christine will be participating throughout the workshop, providing information about any incentives and/or rebates that apply to the technology being discussed.

Building Automation/Smart thermostats with Mayra Reyes/Trane Controls Sales Support Engineer. Learn about low-tech solutions you can implement today that can have an immediate impact, lowering your energy use and energy bills.

High-Efficiency Heat Pumps with Dan Gentry/Trane - Marketing Engineer. A heat pump uses technology like that found in a refrigerator or an air conditioner. It extracts heat from a source, such as the surrounding air, then amplifies and transfers the heat to where it is needed. Because most of the heat is transferred rather than generated, heat pumps are far more efficient than conventional heating technologies such as boilers or electric heaters. Learn how heat pumps can be a potentially easy way to lower your energy costs.

Solar with Josh Barbara/Solar Connections - Energy Consultant. Installing solar panels at your business is easier and more affordable than it's ever been. Solar fixes your electricity costs over the life of the system and protects your business from energy inflation. And, with tax credits and other incentives, a commercial solar system will pay for itself in 5-10 years. Since solar panel equipment is projected to last 30 years or more, your business could have more than 20 years of free electricity.

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Monday May 6th at 11:00 in UWL Student Union Lunch is provided starting at 11:00 AM

Celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with Professor Sara Docan-Morgan's enlightening discussion, "Transnational Korean Adoptees and Family Communication." As a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, with a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Professor Docan-Morgan brings a wealth of expertise to her research. Her work focuses on how family and personal identities are formed and negotiated through messages in both adoptive and birth families, offering valuable insights into the complexities of family dynamics.

Parking Reform Network

2018 parking space downtown La Crosse
Red=cars only. Pink= includes retail/housing.

We just learned that the President of the Parking Reform Network will give a Zoom presentation to the Neighborhood Revitalization Commission on May 1 at 6:00 p.m. The PRN is a national organization that educates the public about the impacts of parking policy on climate, equity, housing, and traffic.

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Below are the links for the May 1, 2024 6:00 pm Neighborhood Revitalization Commission meeting. The meeting will be held in Council Chambers at City Hall or online via Zoom: https://cityoflacrosse-org.zoom.us/j/82155464093?pwd=aGw1NWRRUE4xM1RxajJxaTM0QkNUQT09

Meeting ID: 821 5546 4093

Passcode: 543969

Dial in: 1-312-626-6799

May 1, 2024 Meeting Agenda: May 1, 2024 Agenda https://cityoflacrosse.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1194474&GUID=7BC0CBB0-70DB-41FD-AAB6-26159AC4CE2B 

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We give up a whole lot of public space to cars, especially car storage. All those on street spaces, surface lots, and parking ramps have a cost. It's not just the money, though that's a big chunk of change (especially for people who don't own cars), but it's also the cost in safety, equity, induced driving, and removal of space for other public use - walking, biking, meeting and talking, playing, and living.

The great book MOVEMENT: How to take back our streets and transform our lives discusses the history of losing this public space to cars, the auto-centrism that maintains this unfair system, and the steps we can take to make things change.

An eye-opening webinar by Marco te Brömmelstroet, co-author of MOVEMENT, looks at how language and framing drives the way we consider a situation, decide what the problems are, and prioritize solutions. A "car brain" focus gives us car-priority results. So, we end up with important government and social services that are not accessible unless you have a car, a whole wide lane of Losey Boulevard reserved for occasionally turning cars rather than one for bicyclists, or too-wide paved spaces in low-traffic neighborhoods reserved for car/boat/utility trailer/dumpster/other wheeled vehicle storage rather than repurposed and protected for pedestrians to use.

Several years ago, the Wisconsin Bike Fed and others hosted Open Streets events, where cars were temporarily blocked from driving on a couple of city streets so people, including all the non-drivers in our community, could experience a few hours of fun on the streets we all pay for. These events were not meant to be one-time recreations. They were meant to wake people out of our car brain stupor so we could start making car-free or car-líte/cars-as-guests streets the norm in parts of our community.

As part of a demonstration protected bike lane (pbl) in 2017, we included a display of all the downtown space reserved for parked cars (see map above). The map is eye-opening. All the space that could be parks, outdoor shopping and dining, benches, businesses, shops, housing, offices, services, and more is just sitting there, waiting for a car, and adding to the heat island effect and storm water runoff.

But this program is part of the discussion about reducing or eliminating some parking minimums, which could free up some parking space for other uses. We have to be careful, though, about residential parking requirements. Requiring less off street parking for apartments is fine if there's good transit in a community but maybe not so great if transportation choices are limited.

Check it out.

May 5 - MMIWG

 

Sunday, May 5

M.M.I.W. (Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women) 5K

Join the Ho-Chunk Nation La Crosse Youth and Learning Center for a 5K run/walk to raise awareness and honor the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women.

• 11:00 - Registration opens
• 12:30 - Introduction to the missing & murdered indigenous women and girls epidemic
• 12:35 - Mayoral Proclamation
• 12:40 - La Crosse City Council Resolution
• 12:50 - Wisconsin M.M.I.W. Taskforce
•   1:00 - 5k run begins
•   2:00 - Closing remarks

More details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mmiw-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-5k-tickets-871967888427

Earth Fair Rain Plans

Yesterday, the Earth Fair committee decided to reduce the scope of the event due to forecasts of rainy, possibly dangerous, weather. Outside events like the animals and EV car show are cancelled. And, there will be no tents put up so the groups that usually table there won't be there.

Learn more at

https://www.sustaininstitute.com/earthfairlacrosse